The heart's desire
by Islaterra
Summary: When Cristina gets a good job, with a good salary, she thinks her life couldn't be better. But she'll soon find out working at Dance Central means going through a lot of diverse situations. Add to this economic struggles, complicated relationships and lots of mishaps.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

 **Also, this is based on a show I watched four years ago.**

 **The heart's desire**

 **Chapter 1**

 **The beginning**

As the audience cheered and clapped after the performance ended the studio's director appeared on stage to thank everyone for attending that night's show. Both the audience and the dancer behind him fell silent as the man grabbed a microphone and started speaking.

"I'd like to thank you all for attending our junior show. These kids have been working for six months to execute the routines in an impecable way and they have not dissappointed us. Everyday that they attend class, every time they practice the same move again and again brings us closer to this day: performance day. We all feel relieved when we dance on stage and I hope you enjoyed our show." he continued before making a small pause and the audience clapped again.

As he went on talking about tge dances again, two figures were watching carefully. One was a young man and the other a young woman. He had dirty blond hair and honey eyes while she had light brown hair and brown eyes. Although both of them had tanned skin his skin tone was lighter than hers. Both appeared to be in their early twenties.

"Another successful show for the studio, don't you think?" the guy asked the girl besides him.

"It shouldn't be a shock to anyone. Professor Grant is a perfectionist, he wouldn't dare to put a bad group on stage." she replied nonchalantly before clapping again after the professor's final words.

"Ready to break the news to him?" the young man asked as everyone prepared to leave the theater.

"Why don't we wait until the majority leaves? You know he doesn't let any student to leave alone. He will most likely be at the entrance."

"Right. So for now let's help pick everything up."

And so, both of them walked over to the stage, hoping to help a little.

* * *

There were twelve people in the room, six men and six wome. Half of them were sitting at a large, rectangular table while the other two were standing up. The room also had a screen in front of the table and a small desk on one of the corners. Everyone was chatting while a dark haired man, the one standing up, took a deep breath.

"Everyone, attention please."

The room fell silent as the dark haired man requested the floor. Once he was able to continue he said:

"Well, first things first I want to thank D-Coy for hosting this marvelous party. For being this your first time you surely did a great job."

At the end of the sentence he smiled at one blonde boy and a pink-haired girl. Said crew smiled and nodded their heads at the compliment they had just received before Dare, the pink-haired girl, raised her hand.

"While I'm happy that you think we handled this well Rasa, I must ask you to please not refer to this as a 'first time' since it sounds like sex." she said, making everyone burts into laughter.

"Dare!" Maccoy, the blond boy, exclaimed.

"Oh, please. It's not that taboo." she replied.

"There are children present!" he said gesturing to two young teens.

This just caused everyone to laugh even more as Maccoy blushed in embarrassment and covered his face with his hand.

"Maccoy, I think you should know that Glitch and I both know what sex is." a dark-skin girl said with a wave of her hand. "You know they teach this at school, right?"

"But you are thirteen and Glitch is twelve!" Maccoy insisted.

"Forget it dude." Mo, an African American guy said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Mo, Dare, Maccoy and everyone else in the room were part of Dance Central, a club that had a notorious reputation in the city. Rasa, the dark-haires man, was the leader of the club alongside Lima, a brunette woman who was standing near him at the moment. The people sitting down were the club's main dancers. They worked in crews of two members and each one of them had their own style and scenery. Sometimes Rasa would announce that a party would take place at the club and that a crew would be in charge of it, although sometimes he and Lima did it by themselves.

Rasa cleared his throat so that they could, again, pay attention to him. As soon as every single head in the room turned in his direction, he spoke again. "As I was saying, you hosted a great party tonight. It's certaintly a shame that we were not able to go through all the night but it was imposible to do so because of the...upcoming events." This caused the dancers to whisper to themselves, clearly wondering what the fuss was about.

"Now, I don't want you to think that things aren't going well for us, it's completely opposite to be honest. This club has had a great reception so far, the city knows who we are and what we do. But we want to take things to another level." Rasa continued. He paused once again, thinking about what he was going to say next.

Rasa was having a hard time deciding how to break the news. Being the head of the club was entertaining but also hard in the sense of managing every single thing he had to. Fortunately, he wasn't alone. He casted a small glance at Lima, who beckoned him to continue. He for sure thought he was lucky to have Lima by his side since she was more calm and patient than him. But he was the leader not Lima, and he had to do this without her help.

"I won't reveal a lot about this, tomorrow we will have a more...adequate meeting. But I just want you to know that soon we will have some changes, not completely but for the better. Tomorow, as I said before, I will give you the whole information." He finished.

He saw the looks on the dancers' faces. There was confusion, just plain confusion. He sighed, this wasn't how he wanted things to go. However, he was optimistic they would understand what he meant when he fully explained it to them. He dismissed them and turned around to face Lima.

"How was it?" He asked quietly.

Lima just smiled at him. "You have nothing to worry about. As you said, it is for the better."

* * *

"We certaintly missed our chance." A masculine voice said as the guy got into the car. "So, what do we do now Cris?"

His friend just smiled "For starters, get out of the parking lot." She replied, putting on the seatbelt.

As the car engines roared and they left their spot in the parking lot, she undid her braid to let her hair down. She glanced over to watch her accompaniant and saw that he, too, was tired.

Cristina Leal, the girl in the car, rested her head on her hand as she watched the buildings and cars pass by looking through the window. Twirling a strand of her light brown hair in her fingers, she started thinking about what had happened that day.

Cristina was never one of those people who just forgot about the events of the day once it was over. She was 22 years old, had just finished studying communication sciences and still too young to fully understand what she was meant to do in her life. She didn't have to fool anyone, she herself knew her life was just starting and, to be honest, she was scared. Coming of age was fine until you started to think about all the responsabilities. But, luckily, she had someone to ease her worries.

She hummed quietly to herself before speaking again. "Val, do you think this is safe?"

The young man hesitated for a moment before answering her question. "Cristina, we talked about this. Moving out of our parents' house won't be as easy as we once thought it would be, but we made the decision. We want to be independent but with limits and responsabilities. And, besides, they agreed to this, which I am thankful for. Starting this new phase in our lives is for sure terrifying but, believe me, we will learn a lot from this." he said, smiling softly at her.

Seeing her nod in understanding, he grabbed her hand and gave it a light squeeze. Val and Cristina had been friends since she had started high school and were inseparable. They had formed a close and loyal friendship that only got stronger throughout the years and knew eachother so well. Val knew how insecure Cristina was about her coming of age and independence from her parents. Being a year older than her he didn't have much experience but he was sure they could both go through this. He had her back and wasn't willing to let her fears overcome her.

"You know, it's been a long night. We will talk to Professor Grant tomorrow after getting a good night sleep. Tomorrow we both will be ready to tell him." He told her in a calm voice.

"Yes, it will be better that way."she replied, not letting go of his hand.

* * *

Mo and Maccoy were walking towards the exit alongside Angel, another dancer at Dance Central. They were chatting about Rasa's announcement.

"Man, Rasa clearly left us in a cliffhanger." Mo said as they got closer to the door.

"He looked nervous though." Maccoy pointed out. "Think it is something bad?"

Angel shook his head before replying. "I don't think so. Sure, he did look nervous at the beginning but when he reassured us everything was fine he was completely back to normal."he said while crossing his arms.

Mo noded at his last sentence. They all knew Rasa, he wouldn't be confident unless things were really bad. "I, however, am actually curious about the news. Who knows what thay may be?"

"No idea." Angel said. "The way he said it made it sound...mysterious. As if it was a national secret or something like that."

"I trust Rasa. He wouldn't do something that would do us wrong." Maccoy said.

"Yeah, I agree with you on that. Well, if you excuse me, us good looking people have to rest. So, see you tomorrow." Angel told them nonchalantly earning a roll of eyes, courtesy of Mo, before laughing with the other two dancers.

"Whatever, goodbye." Mo told him. "I'm going to stay a little bit longer, I don't feel tired."

Angel smirked "Now we know why." He said before hurrying towards the exit of the building. As he got out he could barely hear Mo's words.

"Hey! You called me ugly!"

As he got closer to his car, Angel couldn't help but think about what he was going to hear the next day. He quickly shrugged his shoulders, he didn't think it was going to be something bad. And, even if it was, he was confident he would find a way to overcome the situation. He always did.


End file.
